Friday, May 17, 2013

Study Sample

The
first group of individuals I plan to study will be the Wikipedia
editing community in India. This editing community consists of the
various members of the English language and the Indic language
editing communities. This is a relatively large population, though
there is significant overlap between the English language and Indic
language community members as many editors edit in both English and
Indic languages.
As the first objective in my research is to generate a better
understanding of the composition of the Indian editing community, the
data that I gather from this population will contribute significantly
to my analysis of whose voices are heard and whose voices are missing
in the editing communities in India.

I
have selected twenty communities to work with: the English language
editing community and 19 Indic language1
communities. I selected these communities based on their
accessibility (whether or not they could be contacted via a mailing
list, Village pump and/or community page) as well as their inclusion
in the official list of Indic language editing communities2
created by the Centre for Internet and Society (whose Access to
Knowledge team is currently working as the India Chapter of the
Wikimedia
Foundation).
I have chosen not to include the Sanskrit Wikipedia community in this
population as Sanskrit is not a spoken language nor is it the
language of any particular ethnic identity in India. The participants
will not be selected; instead, they will be invited to participate in
a survey via their mailing lists, Village Pumps and Community page,
and the respondents will be included in the research. The requests
for participation and the surveys will be translated in to the
various Indic languages.

The
second group of individuals I plan to study are current female Indian
editors of Wikipedia from either the English editing community or the
Indic community (or, as is most probable, both). These women will be
my main research subjects, as their experiences and stories will help
me answer a significant number of my research questions listed under
my second research objective. These participants will be invited to
be interviewed on the survey as well as through the mailing lists,
Village Pumps and community pages.

The
third population I plan to gather data from is a non-contributor
population (individuals who do not currently edit Wikipedia);
specifically, I've chosen to survey EITHER individuals that have
edited Wikipedia in the past, but stopped doing so more than six
months ago OR a community of potential past editors as well as those
who have never edited. I am not certain which community I will choose
to study at this point in time, as I am not certain if I will be able
to access my potential community of individuals who were once editors
but stopped. No
matter which group I choose, however, their significance to my
research will be the same. It is very important that I gather data
from a non-contributor population, as their responses will help to
highlight those barriers that are the most hindering to and/or
difficult to overcome for women's participation in the editing of
Wikipedia.

If
I am able to gain access to this population, I plan to do research on
the students who were involved in the India
Education Program Pune Pilot Project3
that was carried out by the Wikimedia India Chapter in 2011. These
students were required to edit Wikipedia as a part of a course at the
university or college. I plan to gain access to them through the
individuals who helped organize and run the Pune Pilot Project. They
will be asked to participate in a questionnaire via their email
addresses, and the respondents will be included in the research.

However,
if I am not able to access this population, I plan to gather data
from various
Indian communities related to openness (open access, open data, open
educational resources, etc.), as these individuals will most likely
be quite knowledgeable about Wikipedia but may or may not be
involved. Again,
they will be asked to participate in a questionnaire through their
community mailing lists, and the respondents will be included in the
research.

3This
project was an attempt to engage students and professors in the
Wikipedia editing process and increase the number of editors in
India by using Wikipedia as a teaching tool and assigning Wikipedia
editing as an assignment for various courses. A report on this
project can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Independent_Report_from_Tory_Read